A great variety of drip irrigation emitters are known in the art and in the patent literature.
The following list of patents of the applicant/assignee reflects a sampling of the development of drip irrigation technology:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,423,838, 4,519,546; 4,540,125; 4,655,397; 4,728,042; 4,687,143.
In recent years pressure compensated drip irrigation emitters have come into widespread use since they enable generally uniform irrigation outputs notwithstanding certain variations in input pressure and thus expand the range of applications of such emitters,
Conventional pressure compensated drip irrigation emitters are capable of providing acceptable output uniformity over a limited input pressure range. This limitation greatly limits the application possibilities available for such emitters.